Harding is arguably the most high-profile and influential general counsel in the FTSE100.

The former Clifford Chance financial services partner joined banking giant Barclays in the summer of 2003. A banking partner at one of Barclays' panel firms summed Harding up perfectly, saying: "Mark's a heavyweight lawyer who's calm but firm."

Since Harding took the helm the 500-strong in-house legal function at Barclays has gone from strength to strength. The team is also canny at managing external legal spend. At the tail end of 2006 Barclays rolled out an innovative e-billing solution to help the bank monitor more closely how much it spends with each of its panel firms.

Under Harding's leadership, Barclays' legal function has also made diversity a top priority. Last year the bank followed US trends for corporate responsibility and demanded statistics on the gender and ethnic make-up for its panel firms. In addition to his day job, Harding also headed the highly influential General Counsel 100 Group since its launch in March 2005. The group's recent campaigns included lobbying the Government on the controversial Companies Act.